Enchanting Rebecca

"Course," she answered quietly. There was silence for a moment, she looking down in awkwardness, but pleased, while I wondered how far I could go without mentioning fruit. I took both her hands in mine and brought her forward to kiss her very gently on the cheek. We lingered like that.

"I'm glad you don't mind my doing that," I murmured at last. Then I offered her her wine and a seat some distance from me, as I sat by the computer with my back to it, having neglected to turn it off. "Tell me about things. What do you need to talk about?"

She described her newly arisen troubles and regrets and I offered a bit of understanding, guessing that @she found sex with him quite unpleasant, and @he just made her feel bad and insignificant. She nodded at my sage guesses. @But you still need comfort from someone? @And you've got so few people to turn to? Heavens, why she should lack confidants when she was so beautiful and open and warm was a mystery, but I told her I was honoured she had chosen me. She smiled oddly.

"Actually it's a bit difficult saying some of this to you," she went on. I looked grave and invited her to continue, topping up her glass and mine. "Because you're not really... uninvolved. Oh god!"

"What is it??"

"Sorry, I shouldn't have said that!"

"But how am I involved?"

"Don't you... can't you tell how I...? Oh I feel so silly..." she declared and was very close to tears. After a decent moment's hesitation I moved across, knelt down, and hugged her; now she did begin crying, and I wiped her tears back, drew away the long dark hair that fell about her, held her closer, pressed my mouth against her wet cheek, and finally on her mouth itself. Only with this did she look into my eyes, as if scared of what she might find there. Actually I had no idea what was going on in her head, and was worried it was all about to blow up on me. She whispered, "Doesn't it... don't you... feel anything when we kiss like this?"

"Of course. I love it. You're a dear, sweet friend!"

"Friend!" she cried bitterly. "That's all. I am such a fool."

"No you're not, you're very sensible and intelligent, and that's a big part of why I like you so much. If I was younger I'd really be in trouble, if you were closer to my age," I laughed. And at this the tears began in earnest, and it was a while before she could speak. The thought I was beginning to have was too hopeful to be allowed to see the light. But she said it eventually.

"Couldn't you ever... forget our age difference?"

For answer I took her fingers and held their tips in my mouth. I was in an awkward position to hold her, but I kissed her once more on the lips, pressing her hand between us, then drew it away and advanced into her mouth, and she responded to my tongue with more passion than I had ever felt from her. In the midst of all this my weary bones were beginning to crack and I had to stand up: I shakily offered to pull her up, but she was miserable and stayed sitting. Then suddenly Rebecca laughed out loud, a sad laugh, and I saw she was noticing a bulge in my trousers.

"Sorry, I can't help that! Not with you!"

"Does that mean there's hope for me yet?" she said, distractedly. She gulped down half her glass of wine before I had a chance to speak and pushed the rest away as if she was about to go.

"Stay! You don't have to leave yet?"

"Yes I do. I'll just get involved if I stay."

"Involved, how?" I asked (starting to get annoyed by how I kept repeating the question).

"You know. Sex. And then you'd just hate me."

"Oh Rebecca darling, please don't be silly. I adore you, how could sex make that worse?"

"Because you'd just think you were using me, and I couldn't control what I was doing," she said perceptively, but gesturing to the wine glass. I swallowed a large mouthful of mine for courage as I considered that what she had said did have just the faintest grain of truth in it.

"I do want to sleep with you, you know," I said. "It's not just your imagination."

"Thanks," she sighed with a wan smile. "I appreciate that. And I want to too. But you know we'd both regret it. And anyway, Gary would kill me."

"And me," I added. She agreed casually, which chilled me. It looked like I was going to miss out again, and didn't know whether this conversation had advanced or damaged my cause. I walked her to the door, made as if to open it, and stopped to give her more French kissing. We spent ten minutes like this, arms locked around each other, ranging over backs and hair and buttocks, but Rebecca showed no sign of wanting to do more, only of loving this. My bed was just by the door, and eventually I manoeuvred her towards it and pushed her towards it, but she denied me.

"@Sleep with me," I commanded, but she refused me. "@Let me kiss your breasts," I demanded, and she said she would love to, but couldn't. I felt the thinness of the hypnotist's gift as never before. "@Let me just see them, just one," I insisted, and she shook her head sadly. She clung on to me without doing anything and I took in her infinitely lovely perfume. It took me a minute to realize she had her hand between my legs, just resting, and with the realization I grew larger there: she cupped me and rubbed. I took her face in one hand as I rubbed her bottom more strongly. She gazed very seriously into me.

"Can't," she whispered. Then, "If I took any clothes off I wouldn't know where to stop." With that she began tongue-kissing me again, and as this went on in my paradisiac delirium I felt both hands at my trousers, unzipping me, fumbling in my underpants, and freeing my penis. She dipped down onto her knees and began sucking me, a volcanic rush of tingling velvet. I came in ten seconds, a few short spurts, that was all, and wished she would stay there forever, or at least until I could manage it again, whichever was sooner. But she did me up and stood and looked ravishingly beautiful and desperately sad. "Sorry, sorry, sorry, oh fuck I'm sorry," she cried.

With a final impulsive kiss on my lips she threw open the door and fled. She whispered something as she did, I don't know what -- but I think I caught the word 'love'.

Well what a prize fucking stinker you are, I told myself, as I lay on that empty bed with trousers at half mast for the rest of the evening and tried to jerk savagely into her absent mouth. The imagery, coupled with the real tastes of her I had had so much of just now, and the little miracle of trust she had given me, strengthened my callous resolve. It did seem, after all, that she was genuinely falling in love with me: prompted by my own deceit, admittedly, but who knows what occult and chaotic chances tip the chemical flow in any other case of falling in love?

A couple of days later her sister sought me out and confided in me, saying how worried she was about those unexplained changes, and I was so obviously close to her, had I see anything? Emily had even worked out that the changes seemed to date from seeing the hypnotist, and wondered whether that could have had any unexpected psychological effect. I temporized, saying I found it hard to be objective, because I would inevitably side with Rebecca against Gary if anything did happen to come between them. Emily was unhappy but accepted this.

We were in the pub; I bought her another drink to keep her company with me, not expecting any better to turn up at that hour, when all of a sudden Rebecca herself burst in, and rushed up to us when she saw us. She clasped both of our arms, and though she was outwardly in control, she was clearly very upset underneath it. She said she was so glad to find us together and that she'd broken up with her boyfriend. We oh-noed and tut-tutted and said it wasn't for real, but she insisted it was. As Emily comforted her I left them to the most urgent girls' talk and ordered a drink for her. With some diffidence I took it to the table they had found, not knowing whether I would be welcome. As it was, it was Emily who insisted I join them, so I lightly stroked one of Rebecca's hands as Emily did most of the soul-searching and talking and physical comforting.

As Emily went to the toilet Rebecca grabbed me and enjoined me not to tell her about the other night: the one thing she was ashamed of confessing even to her sister.

"But we hardly did anything!" I maintained. "We kissed. She's seen us kiss. And got a bit carried away."

"No, but we did more, and I feel so bad about it, and not being able to tell her how I feel about you. I... I still mean everything I said," she bravely insisted.

I couldn't show much affection to her here, but squeezed her hand and said in an even lower voice than we were already using, "I was the bad one. I was trying to get you into bed, remember? And you didn't want to, it was all my doing."

"Of course I WANTED to! Didn't I SHOW you?" she hissed.

"Sweet Rebecca, do you think we might one day?" I asked. "Have I got a chance, a randy old git like me?"

"I hope so," she replied with a beatific smile. "I love you."

Emily was coming towards us. In about ten seconds she would be here. No, a delay, a scrum of bar stools, and someone she knew slightly to nod to: fifteen or twenty seconds. I had time to put a resolve into action before I could change my mind.

"Apricot you'll never respond to the hypnotic word 'apricot' ever again," I told her. "Understand?"

Rebecca laid her other hand upon mine and pressed me tight. As Emily came closer I opened a matchbox with my free hand, lifted out a matchstick, and snapped it between my fingers. I dropped the remnants into a nearly-empty discarded pint. "Tonight?" I asked.

"Whenever you want," she said, the smile broader and all mine.